Initial setup for your FirstVoices site

For new FirstVoices sites

If you are a brand new team creating a brand new FirstVoices site, you will first need to confirm the details of your new site with the FirstVoices team so that the site can be created.

You must complete the first steps: confirm your site name and URL. These steps are required before you can proceed.

Once your site is created, then you will be able to return to this onboarding guide and continue with your team.

For existing, inherited FirstVoices sites

If you are a new team beginning to work with an existing FirstVoices site that you have inherited, simply provide the name of that FirstVoices site to FirstVoices staff in your messages as you work through this guide.

Create language team accounts

Open

Navigation bar on the FirstVoices homepage

All team members will need to register for a FirstVoices account in order to add or edit FirstVoices content. Review this article for instructions on how to register and create an account.

Assign team roles to all new Language Team members

For sites not listed on the FirstVoices Explore Languages page

1. Review this article about the different available team roles on FirstVoices.

2. Amongst yourselves, decide what role each member of the Language Team should have to fit in with your expected workflow.

3. The designated Language Administrator(s) should contact the FirstVoices team (hello@firstvoices.com) and send a list of all team members' account email addresses and the team role they should be assigned.

4. FirstVoices staff will assign these permissions to each account.

For existing sites already listed on the FirstVoices Explore Languages page

1. Review this article about the different available team roles on FirstVoices.

2. Amongst yourselves, decide what role each member of the Language Team should have to fit in with your expected workflow.

3. The designated Language Administrator(s) should contact the FirstVoices team (hello@firstvoices.com) and request Language Administrator access for the language site.

4. FirstVoices staff will assign you the Language Administrator role.

5. Other team members should now each request membership for the language site:

   1. Sign in to FirstVoices with your account.

   2. Click on your language site.

   3. Click “Join” and fill out the form to request membership. This will submit a request to the Language Administrator.

6. The Language Administrator should approve each team member’s request, providing the correct role:

   1. Log in to FirstVoices and visit your site Dashboard.

   2. Identify your new language team members from the pending requests.

   3. Use the dropdown to choose the correct team role, then click “OK” for each team member.

Set up your digital workspace and tools

Install Open Office

Open Office is our recommended word processing and spreadsheet software because it handles Indigenous characters best.

You can download Open Office for free at https://openoffice.apache.org.

Install Audacity

Audacity is a free and open-source digital audio editor and recording application software.

Read this page about how to install and configure Audacity.

Install keyboards

Install the keyboard for your language on your computer and phone. It is important to use a Unicode keyboard to type any special characters used in your language to avoid encoding errors.

Read this page about how to install FirstVoices keyboards for Indigenous languages.

Read the Knowledge Base and get started!

Now that you are ready and linked to your language site, take some time to read through the FirstVoices Knowledge Base. There are many how-to articles and instructions on how to get started working on your language site.

Some common articles to start with are:

• Checklist for activating your new site (important for new sites!)

• Customizing your language site homepage

• Change your homepage logo and banner

• Set up a recording space and recording equipment

• Add or edit words and phrases